The story below is a little one shot inspired by the Mark Twain quote. Alistair had (seemingly) made his choice, and so did Neria based on what she thought she had felt then. What happens when two irreversible choices are made? I don't know why I wrote this – but there it is. Oh, I should say that there's a story written by Eva Galana which inspired this tiny little fiction just a bit. I hope you don't mind!

LCailan

oooooo

oooo

o

~The Answer~

ooooooo

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know. ~Mark Twain

oooooooo

"What do you want me to say?" Alistair asked, his brown eyes moving towards her. She sat only a few feet away from him closer to the fire, but she seemed in that moment, further away than she ever had been. "You think I can just forget what happened? What you've done?"

Those were words rendered in his pain, tinted with irritation he wished didn't feel and Neria wished couldn't hear. Her words bubbled up before she could stop them as they often tended to do.

"What I've done?" she snapped back in a harsh response, causing his eyes to widen.

"It doesn't compare," came his saddened response and just as quickly his head dropped to the gold band on his ring finger. "I've reacted out of duty and you…out of something much more selfish."

Neria jumped to her feet, spurned by anger, her hands shaking with restrained rage. She wanted to hurt him, and she had the ability at her fingertips. Fingertips which longed to destroy him. For what he had done, what he had forced her to do, by how he made her feel. All of it.

"What I've done is worse?" she shrieked, her furiously pounding heart lodging itself in her throat making it impossible to breathe. She sank back down to her place by the fire.

He was right, in the end. She had defended Jowan to Arl Eamon. She had begged him be put through the Joining. He had survived. And a maleficar was now a Grey Warden. She had know it would devastate Alistair, but what of it? What had it mattered? He was King now, and his decision to leave her behind for the throne had been enough for her to see red.

And fury unleashed at the hands of this small mage was dangerous. She had acted without thinking. Done something she could not reverse. She had wanted him to hurt the way he had hurt her. No going back.

"You're right," she whimpered so he could barely hear. "I wouldn't ask you to forgive me now. Although I wish you could. I wish we could go back to the night before your coronation. I wish I could have said something, done something to convince you of how I felt. I was angry. Angry that you chose Ferelden over me, and that propriety was so important to you. I wouldn't have put Jowan through the Joining otherwise. I only wanted to hurt you."

Her green eyes met his from across the room and he had to look away because the honesty was too raw, and he thought he would cry and he couldn't, would not allow her to see him cry. Alistair swallowed, twisting the sodden wedding band around his finger. Twisting it with each labored breath he took.

It wasn't happening. It could not be happening.

He had made a choice.

She had made a choice.

"What do you want me to say?" he hissed then, his voice tight from trying to keep his emotions at bay. "Where does that put us? Does it put us anywhere at all? What can I say now? What do you want from me?"

Neria stood up once more.

"I want the truth. That's all I ever wanted. I want to know how you feel. Why is that so hard to face Alistair?" she challenged.

He stood in one movement, flinging his hands out in completeness of frustration.

"You want an answer? Here you go. I don't know. I – do- not- know. I didn't know then, and I still don't know!"

Each word was sharp like a dagger, as if he wanted to wound her. Indeed, there were tears in those green eyes.

"You do know!" she exclaimed watching him. At least now, his own watery eyes didn't seem nearly as awkward. "You've always known! You say you don't know, but I DO! I know. You just can't face it, can you? I wasn't as important as what you thought you had to do! That's all it is. You're a coward!"

Words could wound him too, and these words did, because he loved her. He had always loved her, he thought. What she wanted however, he could not have given. Why admit to love if nothing were to come of it?

"It doesn't matter anyway," Neria finished with resignation.

"What? Why?" he questioned his tone rising a bit out of panic. She sighed.

"You said that night you didn't know if you loved me, but what you did, well it speaks even if you didn't. You chose something else, Alistair. So…what I've done – it doesn't concern you. It shouldn't."

She glanced up at him one last time, memorizing the face, the man he was. The man she had loved – she would love always – before turning to move towards the doors that would take her away from this. She hoped never to see him again.

She didn't see him rise, and pull the wedding band from his hand, tossing it aside with a dull clinking sound. Before she could think, she was wrapped in his arms, a desperation in his kiss she had never tasted before. As she succumbed to it she thought maybe in this…she had her answer after all.